From tribuna.com
Ever since July of this summer, the transfer window has been dominated by Barcelona like no other club. But not in the way they may have liked.
Their
pursuit of Philipe Coutinho of Liverpool and Ousmane Dembele of Borussia
Dortmund have actually come into a lot of criticism. Dortmund CEO Hans-Joachim
Watzke had stated earlier this week, per Sky Deutchland, that “Two weeks ago, I
considered Barcelona a great and respectable club. Today, I have to say I’m no
longer sure about that.”
Watzke’s
comments are completely well-based too. Dembele at age 20 was only signed a
year ago by the club from Rennes for €15 million. His future in the beautiful
game looks set to someday see him as one of the world’s best attacking players
and he already is a key starting player for BVB.
But very
similarly to the stance taken at Liverpool with Coutinho, Dortmund have been
adamant that they do not want to sell their prized asset. But Barca have
seemingly taken the exact same approach with both clubs. Bid and bid again
until they both can’t say no. Liverpool had already rejected a bid last week
worth £114 million for Coutinho. But there were recent reports emerging of Barca
preparing a final £136 million bid for the Brazilian star.
from ESPN.co.uk
Today there
have been multiple reports saying that Dortmund have confirmed themselves, that
Dembele is set to join Barcelona for a reported €150 million. This fee will
make him the second most expensive transfer of all time.
Watzke had
said earlier today that “The transfer is on the way…but not finalized yet. We’ll
announce it when it’s finalized.”
Many neutral
fans can sympathise with Barcelona’s never-ending determination to sign their
top targets but you can’t deny there is some sort of desperateness to them
these days. The club obviously were not prepared to lose Neymar when PSG
activated his €222 million release clause late in July. Since then the club
have signed Paulinho and have been working on deals for Coutinho, Dembele and
possibly Jean Michael Seri of OGC Nice.
Barcelona in
my own opinion, have acted poorly in their pursuit of a couple of their top
targets. When a club constantly rebuffs your bids and you don’t take the hint
you are unsettling the clubs’ squads and those players in question. Since
Barcelona’s initial bids for Coutinho and Dembele were turned down, Coutinho
had handed in a transfer request. There were multiple reports from Spanish publications
that Coutinho had told his manager that he had no interest in playing for
Liverpool any more. Even though that news may actually be false it shows the un-sportsman-like
manner in which Barca have conducted the deal.
from goal.com
Liverpool
for the whole summer had told Barcelona to not even bother bidding for their
playmaker but Barcelona had continued to do so any way. In the case of Dembele,
he had recently skipped out on training and had been suspended by the club as a
result. It doesn’t take the world’s greatest detective to realise that chiefly it
is Barcelona at the heart of both those problems.
And given
that Barcelona have supposedly finally gotten one of the players they wanted,
you can;’ help but feel there has been a great injustice here.
Again in a
number of way you cannot blame Barcelona. It was pretty fresh in the memory
when their bitterest rivals Real Madrid had completely outclassed them in the
Spanish Super Cup 5-1 on aggregate. It was clear in both games that Barca were
really missing Neymar and that they didn’t quite look like the same team
without him.
Not only that,
but it was also clear that Real Madrid have a team capable of repeating such a
score-line the next time the 2 teams meet. As even in Cristiano Ronaldo’s absence
for Los Blancos, Real still comfortably beat a full-strength Barca team 2-0 in
the second leg of that tie.
from fox sport
Hence why
Barcelona need to bring in an adequate replacement. Not just to fill his role
in the team, but to convince their fan base that Barcelona aren’t going
backwards.
If Barca didn’t
have enough problems already, it had come to the fore in recent days that main
man Lionel Messi is yet to put pen to paper on a contract extension he agreed
early in July. But in a scenario where he refuses to sign that deal; Barcelona
could be in a worse situation than the Neymar transfer.
As said by a
former Barcelona presidential candidate Agusti Benedito, “Messi’s case could be
worse than Neymar’s because, as things stand, from January 1, he’s free.” This
is because Messi can negotiate a pre-contract with any team he pleases in
January and Barcelona are powerless to intervene. If a player of Messi’s
calibre was to leave the club, especially for free, then Barcelona could have
the unfathomable task of trying to replace a player who has better than everyone
else on the planet- bar Cristiano Ronaldo. Keeping in mind here, that Real
Madrid would never in their right mind let Ronaldo join their arch-enemy.
Oh, and the
fact he has a €1 billion release clause in his contract that nobody would realistically
have the funds to try to activate.
from AS English
Furthermore,
it appears that Neymar’s move to PSG is not water under the bridge. The club
are planning to sue him for €8.5 million for ‘breaching his contract’ in moving
to the French club. But Neymar and his representatives are having none of it.
They announced on Tuesday that would contest Barca’s claim. But not only that, Neymar
is set to sue Barca for an unpaid loyalty bonus worth €26 million that was included
in the contract he signed last November.
Neymar had
even spoke on his less-than-ceremonious departure from Barca this week saying
via ESPN that the Barcelona Board “shouldn’t be in charge of Barca. Barca
deserve much better.” You can’t help but feel when a player as good as Neymar
leaves one of the world greatest teams and then says this about that club’s hierarchy,
that the fans should have some cause for concern for the direction their club
is heading.
Barcelona is
most definitely the most relevant team this summer, but it seems it’s for all
the wrong reasons.
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